we slept in the clinic saturday night with the hope that one of the moms we sent home earlier that day would be back and dilated past 5cm... they love to come back late at night. In fact, the majority of the births here happen in the early hours of the morning. and lately, we have had some serious, streets-turned-to-rivers rain, so I was pretty confident we'd have a mom in labor, and a new baby before morning... i was right. just after midnight Lauren and I woke to one of the midwives alerting us that the mom was in the delivery room and dilated to 10cm! we had fallen asleep while watching xmen origins (one of our pirated movie purchases - the edits in the movie are not complete and some of the scenes are pretty funny because of it), in the only air conditioned room in the clinic (what a luxury!!). we threw on scrub tops, crossed the hall to the quiet, poorly-lit delivery room, and just as we rounded the knee of the laboring woman we realized the baby's head was already out!! I mean, we're talking a push-and-a-half delivery if that... and the mom hardly broke a sweat (that's saying a lot because sitting usually elicits profuse sweating here). we later found out this mother was G6. by the 6th pregnancy that is usually what you expect... it is a good thing we slept at the clinic. we stayed up for a few hours taking vitals and giving the baby a ballard score. she was really healthy and responsive, with a tight grip and a really long tongue she kept sticking out as she looked for anything to suck on. love seeing the healthy babies, especially because our birth last night was probably the scariest yet - more on that later.
after only a couple hours of sleep we were up and on our way to Shangri-la with Hilary, David and Gina. Shangri-la is one of the nicest hotel in this area of the Philippines (it means "heaven" after all). while driving to Mactan Island we learned that the mother who delivered last night is a little off her rocker... you do have to give her credit for having such a healthy baby, since so many of the mothers are plagued by malnutrition, STIs, hypertension, or other health issues that can harm a fetus. unfortunately, we learned that once the baby is born, her competence as a mother leaves a lot to be desired. apparently one of her earlier babies had been constipated, and to remedy this the mother had taken a mixture of herbs and shoved it up the baby's anus. well you can only imagine this did not help, and in fact, it eventually led to an infection, at which point the mother was at least smart enough to bring the baby to the clinic, rectum filled with herbs and bleeding with the irritation and infection (the baby was taken to the hospital and was ultimately fine). A remedy like that is usually suggested by the Hilot - a sort of witch doctor used here - often present during home deliveries, and frequently responsible for the spontaneous abortion (miscarriage) of a healthy child. The Hilot seems to do a lot more harm that good judging by the stories I've heard... Hopefully, this new baby stays very healthy and pooping regularly. or even better, maybe after the mother's experience with her other child, she will stay away from the Hilot. Just another shocking tale that I hope I am not becoming desensitized to from hearing so many similarly alarming stories.
We made it to Shangri-la and proceeded to finally be real tourists! Snorkeling, sunbathing, amazing food, gorgeous infinity pool looking out on the ocean... the resort is huge, so despite always being booked to capacity, it never feels crowded. Lauren and I spent hours in the ocean pointing out fish: bring purple sea stars, huge schools of silvery fish, a huge white eel, humuhumunukunukuapuaa, colorful parrot fish, clams that were feet across, and even Nemo fish!! (you know, clown fish, no joke, there was even a baby - no hurt fin though :) we were in paradise. our bodies thoroughly desiccated from so much time in the salt water, we went to one of the main restaurants for lunch. A buffet with literally hundreds of different options from extravagant salads to every type of sea food and sushi imaginable, the best Indian food I've ever had, and so much more... and the desserts were definitely shangri-la... fresh mango + chocolate fountain? yes please! It was so nice to finally have a relaxing day at the resort!!
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